Past asset sales have seen the assets end up wholly or mainly in foreign ownership. Essential industry asset sales undermine both sovereignty and public accountability.

Recent legislation has further weakened the protection of domestic consumers from the market power that pervades the electricity industry.

There is no evidence that asset sales will bring better service or lower prices for domestic consumers. Past sales have resulted in asset stripping, run-down infrastructure, higher costs for domestic consumers, and/or worse service.

Any further loss of public ownership would:

- make the electricity industry even more difficult to control in the interests of domestic consumers and the nation as a whole, and

- undermine the potential of the electricity industry to be run differently, to serve the interests of the country as a whole instead of to maximise profits.

- confirm the pre-eminence of shareholder interests over and above domestic consumer interests.